Thirty-one years is a long time to know someone and yet not to really know them. This, however, is how it has been with me and Nicholas Alexander Faldo. It has been a relationship of a kind but I'm closer to the nice bloke who delivers my mail than I ever have been to the greatest golfer ever from these islands.

I have always been the journalist, Faldo always the superior pro sportsman. Fair enough, even if it has not been this way with the other members of Europe's Generation X, Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer and Ian Woosnam offering various levels of comradeship as well as quotes. Faldo's default position when it comes to interaction with his fellow human beings (and here I suppose we must include the media) has always been the cold side of detached.

Along with every other British golf writer of my generation, I have been burned by Faldo. He would say, with some legitimacy, that he has often been burned by us. I respect his achievements but he has been impossible to embrace. One particular encounter, when he was in his prime, turned into an abrasive meeting filled with gobsmacking contempt and rudeness, and a story for another time perhaps.

So what is my point? It is that the treatment of Faldo by sections of the British media since Europe lost the Ryder Cup has been unfair. By the time he left Louisville before dawn broke last Monday, he had had the opportunity to read the headlines in that day's British newspapers. They did not make for a comfortable trip back across the Atlantic. No wonder he brushed past waiting reporters, updating Roberto Duran's old line by snapping: 'Officially, no more.'

Once again it has become personal between him and us. Or too many of us, anyway. There are three important factors here: Europe lost; Faldo was dumbly tetchy all week; and too many reporters arrived in Kentucky programmed to seize the earliest opportunity to put the boot in. 'It's payback time,' was the view of more than one writer when I suggested there was an unnecessary hardness to the words being sent on Sunday evening. 'We need a pantomime villain and he's it,' said another.

That was unfair enough, in the knockabout world of instant reflection that often has to be the way with sports reporting. London news desks seemed anxious to find someone to blame for Europe's defeat. But even after the first flow of vitriol on the evening of the final day's play, the knives have continued to be thrown rather cruelly at Faldo.

His immediate return flight to the US after accompanying his team home to Heathrow must have given Faldo plenty of time to ask himself 'Was it bloody worth it?' The answer, almost certainly, is no.

After a lifetime reading the script of his life, a story that always ended with the word 'winner', he is now, and always will be, a loser at the end. It is a twist he did not see coming and one that will trouble him for years.

What, though, did he do so wrong? He picked Ian Poulter and it turned out to be an inspired decision. He brought to bear his famous attention to detail and, clearly, tried his best, as he always has done on or off a golf course. Yes, he talked too much about himself and his family and bridled too easily, as ever, when a few hard questions were thrown his way. His strategy for the singles line-up flew in the face of accepted wisdom when he back-loaded the order too much. This is a fact, however, that only became obvious with hindsight. Most significant of all, he enjoyed little in the way of luck.

Had Sergio García defeated Anthony Kim in the first match, how different things might have been. Then, as the pressure mounted on those final pairings, how glad would Europe have been to have the team's destiny in the hands of the final two, the hugely experienced Lee Westwood and three...#8209;time major champ Padraig Harrington? Very glad indeed.

Except that Westwood and Harrington did not play anywhere near their best during any part of this Ryder Cup. Nor did García.

These were the three established stars of the European side, the men who would surely build the foundation for victory. All three played four times at Valhalla and between them they contributed two points to the team total. This is poor beyond description. Even a pessimist on a bad day would have thought this trio could amass at least six.

If they had, then Faldo would have been hailed as tactically outstanding as he led the way to victory. Instead, Westwood was strangely off-message all week, García was uninspired following illness and Harrington was quite clearly exhausted. So Europe lost. Not because Faldo is a fool - although some of his public speaking may well make you think this - not even because he is a loner, but because the little things that encourage triumph over disaster fell the way of his counterpart, Paul Azinger.

This, however, is no big deal. Another tasty European victory may well have affected the American public's enthusiasm for the Ryder Cup. Now they, like us, cannot wait to get their teeth into the treat that will be served up at Celtic Manor in Wales in 2010.

Europe have much to look forward to. What the compelling rumble at Valhalla has shown us is the new core battalion of players. Men such as Poulter, Justin Rose, Oliver Wilson and Graeme McDowell, whose games and personalities are ideally suited to this rumble.

Meanwhile there is no shortage of volunteers anxious to take Faldo's job. If there is any real justice hovering around the European Tour, then Sandy Lyle should be anointed skipper early next year, but nothing is certain. Denmark's Thomas Bjorn is known to be keen and, naturally, so too is Ian Woosnam.

Somewhere close to this small posse of wannabe captains is Ireland's Paul McGinley, who could just be the compromise choice. Whatever happens, whoever gets the role will know that if his side win then he will be painted as a hero, but if they lose he will probably be kicked too hard.